If there's any real blame to lay in this scenario where the Canucks have played well enough to win, but have been held to the perimeter and ultimately defeated by Mr.Quick, it's possible that the blame may lie on the coaching staff. In the regular season where the games are too close together and teams have the luxury of thoroughly preparing for a particular opponent, over the long haul the team with the best depth and overall talent wins. So the Canucks, strong in most areas, rack up 111 points and another President's Trophy.

If teams in the post-season, when they have the time and resources to carefully develop a game-plan, are able to shut down the Canucks offense, then Vancouver should similarly have the time and resources to develop a counter-plan. A couple years back, the Canucks responded to the Kings' early success on the PP, corrected the problem and eventually went on to win the series. If the Canucks' only answer to LA's forecheck and zone-like defense is to "keep-trying", then they might just end up swept. They can look like the better team all they want, if they're going to win they have to adapt. Adaptation falls to the coaching staff. Moving forward, Gillis will need to consider this.

As far as players elevating their games for the playoffs goes, what the hell were these players doing in the regular season? If you've got more to give, then you weren't giving it your all before. I think it's ridiculous to heap praise on a player who was crap all year, solely because he's now playing up to his potential.

Puck wrote:If there's any real blame to lay in this scenario where the Canucks have played well enough to win, but have been held to the perimeter and ultimately defeated by Mr.Quick

This is an interesting thought, and I was going to reply to a similar post by mathonwy elsewhere but did not want to further derail the "rally caps" thread; are the Canucks really 'playing well enough to win' if we have to grant a huge exception for the hardest-fought area of the ice, the area where they have to be to pressure the Kings best player?

Which is it - are we running into a hot goaltender or are we not pressuring him enough (or in the right way)? Are we playing well enough to win or are we failing to do what it takes to win?

Over the 3 games, Vancouver's even strength puck possession stats are 60%. They turned LA into a 60% fenwick team since the deadline into a 40% team. Vancouver is dominating a team 5 on 5 that was itself dominating through March and April.

Gillis and Vigneault talk about "the process". This is the process, control the puck more than the other team and give yourself better percentages to win. Brain dead plays by Edler that end up in the net or unlucky bounces on special teams that end up in the net have been the difference. Coaching or the process has not.

Over the course of a season, with possession stats like that, Vancouver would win another presidents trophy and LA would be 30th overall. However, Quick has had a lucky/unsustainable/hot run over the very small 3 game sample and here Vancouver sits 3 buzz. You can criticize Vancouver's inabilities to score, but I'll point out other other team, including it's goalie has alot to say about your scoring as well.

Quick's regular season save percentage was .929. Vancouver had 99 shots over the last 2 games. If Quick plays only up to his Vezina calibre regular season level, instead of a .980 level, Vancouver would have scored 5 more goals in the last 2 games. That would probably mean 2 wins instead of two losses.

I'll throw this quote out there one more time

"Hockey is a little bit schizophrenic in this way. It holds two mutually contradictory values, the short-term and the long-term, and this is reflected in the structure of the season itself. The regular season is constructed to prize durable, sustainable talents, to average out streaks and slumps and give the favorable position to the most consistent teams. But then that reward is followed up by a tournament of ridiculously small sample sizes where any little surge of awesomeness, from anyone, no matter what their true talent level, might make the difference between a Cup ring and a golf cart. The game is designed, in the end, to give out its highest prizes based on unsustainable streaks."

Puck wrote:If there's any real blame to lay in this scenario where the Canucks have played well enough to win, but have been held to the perimeter and ultimately defeated by Mr.Quick

This is an interesting thought, and I was going to reply to a similar post by mathonwy elsewhere but did not want to further derail the "rally caps" thread; are the Canucks really 'playing well enough to win' if we have to grant a huge exception for the hardest-fought area of the ice, the area where they have to be to pressure the Kings best player?

Which is it - are we running into a hot goaltender or are we not pressuring him enough (or in the right way)? Are we playing well enough to win or are we failing to do what it takes to win?

Well...

Game 1 - We did not play well enough to win. We lost our heads with all of the minors we took and those killed us.

Game 2 - We did not play well enough to win because of our powerless play. Any positive momentum we had going into power play was completely wiped out. We had spurts of good play but allowing two SHG's is really unforgiveable.

Game 3 - Yes. I believe we did play well enough to win but we got unlucky. It felt to me like old time puck possession Canuck hockey last night but Quick had the answer. Dustin Brown got lucky. Right place, right time. Pahlsson checks Brown into the ice and then completely forgets about him. Puck goes to the point, Williams shoots at ginger, ginger makes the save and happens to kick the puck to exactly where Brown is and Brown doesn't miss the empty net.

Larry Goodenough wrote:
Quick's regular season save percentage was .929. Vancouver had 99 shots over the last 2 games. If Quick plays only up to his Vezina calibre regular season level, instead of a .980 level, Vancouver would have scored 5 more goals in the last 2 games. That would probably mean 2 wins instead of two losses.

Interesting. I wonder if there's any way of finding out how many of those shots had traffic in front, or came from outside the circles or randomly thrown on net? The Canucks may have a shitpile of shots, but it I don't think Quick is playing out-of-his mind, Tim Thomas hockey. The Canucks are generating very few scoring chances. I think they might be skewing the statistics by getting shitty shots on goal.

Yes, they have possession much of the time. They're also doing almost dick-all with it, and they have easily given up the better chances.

Bottom line for me is that while we arguably played well enough to win, we also played well enough for LA to win. We did not force the issue in their zone and as such a single mistake was an absolute back breaker.

I think the series, on effort and overall effectiveness, has probably been pretty even. If the Kings sweep, it'll be just like Vancouver's sweep of the Blues in 2010(?): overly flattering to the victor. But I'll ask again, who's fault is it that the Canucks can't get the goals? The players not executing, or the system not suiting the opponent?

I'm really sick of hearing about how we played "our game" and the "puck possession" was in our favor but [insert goaltender's name] had the answer. That's bullshit. Quick made next to no saves that were from real scoring spots on the ice. I would venture to say that 75% of the shots he faced were from 30+ feet out and coming in from the wing at poor angles. The other 25% were little chip shots that hit him in the pads from in close but always at a bad angle. How many second shot opportunities did he have to turn aside? Two at most. I can actually only think of one. To hell with the puck possession. They can control the puck for 60 minutes, skate in circles in the LA zone for the entire game, fire 100 shots at Jonathan Quick, but we would still lose that game 1-0 because NOTHING we threw at the net had a snowball's chance in hell of actually rippling the mesh.

Every goalie is going to have an answer for the Canucks when the team in front of said goaltender makes sure he doesn't see a quality shot for 60 minutes. Quick has NOT been the difference in this series, our coach's inability to adapt has.